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ABi.aHAM LINCOLN: 



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O l^ A T 1 O N 



DELIVKKKD BKKOKft THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES AM) (IIIZENS, 
JUAE 1, 1865, 



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I' i: O V 1 D K K C K 



l» l{ 1 N T K li S . 



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PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF PROVIDENCE 



ON THE DEATH OF 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 



WITH THE 



ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES AND CITIZENS, 
JUNE 1, 1865, 



By WILLIAM BINNEY, Esq. 




PROVIDENCE: 

KNOWLES, ANTHONY & CO., PRINTERS. 
1865. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE CITY COUNCIL. 



ABEAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, 
died in the city of Washington, on the 15th day of April, 
1865, by the foul hand of assassination. The telegraph, which 
had been flashing the joyful news of victory and the fall of the 
rebellion, carried the tidings throughout the land. Deep sor- 
row filled all hearts which had learned to resj)ect and then love 
the pure patriot who had gone. 

The Mayor of the City of Providence called a special meet- 
ing of the City Council, on the j 7tli of April, and delivered 
the foUowino: messase : — 



MESSAGE OF THE MAYOR. 



Mayor's Ofi-ice, | 

Providence, April 17tli, 1805. ' 

Gentlemen of the City Council : — 

I have convened you, at this time, to take such action as you 
may deem expedient, in reference to the great calamity that 
has just fallen upon our nation. The President of the United 
States has come to his death by the hands of an assassin. 
History aflfords no parallel to this atrocious crime. 

Abraham Lincoln, called for the second term, by the free 
voice of the people, to be the guide of the nation's destiny, 
while unceasingly devoting his term of service to its welfare. 



4 Proceedings of the City Council 

and knowing no policy, save that which should best secure its 
prosperity, — exercising the powers of government at his com- 
mand, solely for the restoration of the national authority, — 
ever tempering justice with much mercy, — has fallen a victim 
to the power that he was seeking to overcome with love. 

The events of the past week have given rise to the feeling, 
that although the dawn of peace seemed breaking and the dark 
clouds of war seemed rolling away, yet our nation was really 
in greater danger than at any previous time. The liberal terms 
granted, upon its surrender, to the army under the command of 
the second of arch traitors ; the indications that were being 
manifested of a magnanimous treatment of men, guilty of the 
blackest of crimes ; the feeling of generosity that was being 
cultivated among the people of the North, towards the men 
who had not only raised their hand against the government, 
but who also visited upon its captured soldiers a line of treat- 
ment unparalleled in the history of civilized warfare ; — these 
were greater dangers than any we have yet encountered, and 
they are only checked by a crime, whose baseness will astound 
the world, and which clearly signifies that the power which 
has instigated and carried on this wicked rebellion is capable 
of any barbarity which will aid its infamous designs. 

That Divine Providence, which through these years of trial 
has strengthened and protected our President, upon which he 
leaned with confidence and submission, and to which he looked 
at all times for consolation and support, has, at the very hour 
of his triumph, permitted his removal, and granted to him, as 
to the Patriarch of old, only a distant view of the promised 
land. 

Let us, in this hour of bereavement, trust in that same Prov- 
idence, to guide us safely on as a nation, and to grant unto us 
that the successor of him who hath been so suddenly removed 
may be armed with power and might to drive our enemies out 
from among us, and by a strong and vigorous policy, teach the 
world and the generations yet to come, that treason against 
such a government as ours is not to be rewarded with honor or 
magnanimity. 



On the Death of Abraham Lincoln. 5 

Since the death of the first President of the United States, 
no man has passed away whose death has called forth such gen- 
eral expressions of sorrow, and such universal lamentations, as 
that of Abraham Lincoln. His honesty of pui-pose, his integ- 
rity of character, his simplicity of heart, all endeared him to 
the nation ; and the spontaneous bursts of grief from the stout- 
est hearts are the evidences of the love and veneration in which 
the loyal people held their chosen ruler. That one so kind and 
gentle in his disposition should have died by the hand of the 
murderer, a victim to the power of darkness, has stirred the 
feelings of our citizens as they were never moved before. 

Wednesday, the 10th instant, being the day designated for 
the funeral of the venerated dead, I recommend that it be set 
apart as a day of public mourning, and that a Committee of 
your body be authorized to make arrangements for suitable ser- 
vices on the occasion. 

THOMAS A. DOYLE, Mayor. 



REMARKS OF WILLIAM BINNEY, ESQ., 
president of the common c0un( ie. 

Mk. President : — 

There are occasions in life when the human tongue, however 
eloquent, has an opportunity to learn its utter feebleness. 
There are griefs of which the only palliatives are silence and 
reflection. There are crises in the life of the nation, when the 
soul of every man, prostrated by the perception of gloom on 
every hand, turns in upon itself, and is paralyzed by the con- 
sciousness of an equal sympathetic gloom within ; and when 
feeling, with the force of an instinct, bids us to commune with 
ourselves and be still. I need not say, Sir, that this is such an 
occasion ; and did I listen to my own desires, no word of mine 
should intrude between the thoughts of any in this assembly, 
and their own convictions of our terrible calamity. But, Sir, 



6 Proceedings of the City Council 

I do not forget that the privileges which are allowed to indi- 
viduals must be abandoned, when, however humble, they stand 
as representatives of the community in which they live ; or that 
propriety and decency demand that the spontaneous sorrow 
of the members should have an opportunity to crystalize itself 
into the more formal grief of the body politic. It is for this 
reason, and because this Council is the formal representative of 
the citizens of Providence, that I address you these few words. 
Before the fatal year of 1861 had dawned upon this country, 
the present generation of men had known but few such epochs 
as those to which I have alluded ; but in the four long years 
which since then have passed over our land, — at times irradia- 
ting it with the full brilliancy of sunlight, and at times covering 
it with a thick impenetrable cloud, — your own memory will 
suo-fTcst but too many instances. I need but recall the 
bewilderment which brooded on every face when the news 
of our first great defeat fell on us like a thunder-bolt from the 
clear sky ; or to that day when we learned slowly and by 
fragments that all the struggles of the Peninsula, its bloody 
battles, its weary marches, its patient watchings, the un- 
yielding faith of its heroic army, were as yet all in vain ; 
and that the host which had listened to the bells of Rich- 
mond as they beleaguered it, now beaten and crushed back, 
could send us no brighter bulletin than temporary safety 
on the banks of the James. I could point you to that day, 
when, with beating hearts, we almost counted the footsteps of 
an insolent enemy marching on to our very capital, and when 
we scarcely dared to breathe, until Antietam gave us courage. 
I could point you to that cloud which, rising behind the AVil- 
derness and Chancellorsville, swept noi'thward until it burst 
upon the hillside of Gettysburg, and though it burst in blood 
upon that consecrated spot, yet there, rolled back its torn and 
emptied bulk and came no farther. But, Sir, be your memory, 
never so retentive of the vicissitudes of these slow rolling years, 
I feel that you will agree with me that in all their sorrowful 
record they can show us no such day as the fifteenth day of 
A])ril IBl)'). Then, for the first time, the nation began to see 



On the Death of Ann aha m Lincolx. 7 

the dawning of an abiding peace. Victory after victory had 
ghiddencd our ears. The chief army of the rebellion was cap- 
tive to that army which had so long watched and fought it. 
Bonfires and torches all over the land gave expression to the 
general hilarity ; when, in an instant, upon the stillness of that 
tranquil morning, the ai)palling news crashed over us, that our 
President had been assassinated — that that great and jrood 
man, that man dear to our hearts beyond all other men, that 
man precious to the nation beyond all other men, was rapidly 
dying, if not dead, and this, too, at the hands of a rebel assassin. 
Sir, he is dead, and it is around his mangled but peaceful re- 
mains that the nation is pouring out unpurchasable tears. In 
the presence of such a mysterious and such an immeasurable 
calamity, it cannot be expected that we should rightly appre- 
ciate what it is that we have lost. This is not the time, nor 
are mine the lips, to tell what that man was to this nation, 
much less to utter any conjecture of what, in the Providence of 
God, he might have been. If we desire his portrait Ave can 
find it shrined in the grateful hearts of millions of freemen, 
both white and black, all over this land. If we desire to know 
what he has done, we can look around. Look not only here to 
this community, whose soil was never tainted by the foot of an 
armed rebel, and where peaceful industry has been permitted to 
create its blessings in unexpected plenty, but look over our con- 
tinent : we can behold that majestic river of the West again offer- 
ing its broad bosom as the highway for a nation of freemen ; Ave 
can see enfranchised Maryland, liberated Louisiana, free Mis- 
souri, the Atlantic seaboard opened to a peaceful commerce from 
one end of our domain to the other ; Ave can see a purged Consti- 
tution ; Slavery transformed from a hideous fact into a ghastly 
but harmless memory ; a disintegrated Confederacy ; its Con- 
gress fugitives, its arch traitor a A^agabond in the land ; or 
again we can behold the flood of love pouring from a grateful 
nation tOAvard that man, and SAVclling back to every human 
beino' in it from the fullness of his oAvn jjjreat heart. And if avc 
will venture into the future, Ave may behold that sagacious, 
kindly nature, harmonizing, arranging, re-adjusting a restored 



8 Proceedings of the City Council. 

government, and then administering it, in the principles of 
obedience to God and love to man. Then, sir, if we have the 
heart to do it, we can turn and look upon that silent corpse. 
It seems to me, Mr. President, that the humblest man in the 
nation may feel what the most eloquent never can express. 

I have said already too. much, or too little. I have the honor 
to offer for the adoption of this Council the resolutions which 
I hold in my hand, and which, with the permission of the chair, 
I will read. 

Mr. Binney offered the following resolutions, which were 
unanimously adopted by both boards of the City Council : — 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF 
PROVIDENCE, 

PASSED APRIL 17, 1865. 

Whereas, Under every dispensation of an AH Wise and 
Merciful God, the only attitude for a Christian people is that of 
truthful submission. 

Resolved^ That we, the City Council of the City of Provi- 
dence, representing a loyal and a Christian community, do bow 
our hearts before Almighty God, under the crushing blow 
which he has permitted us to receive, and that we humbly im- 
plore Him who maketh rulers, and unmaketh them at Plis will, 
to be henceforth in an especial manner, the Ruler, Guide and 
Governor of our sorrow stricken land. 

Resolved, That in the death of the late President of the 
United States, at this crisis of their destiny, we endure the 
culminating calamity of our nation. In his murder, we behold 
the crowning infamy of our age. Yet, " though perplexed we 
arc not in despair ; though cast down we are not destroyed ; 
and over his yet unburied body, we renew our allegiance to 
the great cause for which he lived, and pledge a deathless 
opposition to the rebellion at whose felon hand, he died. 

Resolved, That so long as patriotism shall be accounted a 
virtue ; so long as untarnished honesty, unflinching courage, a 



On the Death of Abraham Lincoln. 9 

life-long devotion to duty, and the sacrifice of life in its de- 
fense, can wake an echo in the soul ; while a thoughtful and 
sagacious intellect can claim the admiration of man, or a blame- 
less life challenge his respect ; while firmness that reverses 
cannot shake, nor slander dissolve, shall merit his praise, or the 
consciousness of benefits confessed awaken his gratitude and 
love ; so long shall the name and memory of Abraham Lincoln 
be consecrated in the hearts and history of this preserved and 
grateful nation. 

Resolved^ That in this awful crime at which humanity stands 
aghast, we see the familiar features of that rebellion whose 
hell-given energies have so long desolated our land. It was 
not enough to delude the nation with the sophistries of per- 
verted intellect, to corrupt it with the poison of a baneful ex- 
ample, to insult it with the arrogance of a more than Pagan 
barbarism. It has demanded the nation's life, and has wielded 
the sword, the torch, and the dagger, with undiscriminating 
and congenial joy. Surging forth upon a peaceful land, with 
Slavery as its new Gospel of conquest, it has, for four long 
years, defied the clemency of God and the authority of human 
law. Unnumbered battle-fields retain tlic victims of its open 
warfare ; the bones of sixty thousand of our brethren starved 
in its prisons, attest the infamy of its secret decrees ; the mid- 
night ocean has grown lurid with the flames of its piracies ; 
and now, in the hour of its prostration, when the Majesty of 
the Republic had well nigh crushed its organized strengtli, the 
most precious life of our people has gone out before the pistol 
of its assassins. An outraged nation must henceforth regard 
the friends of fetich a rebellion as the enemies of the Imman 
race. 

Resolved, That we tender to the aflflicted widow and family 
of our late President, our most earnest and heartfelt sympathy 
in this their terrible calamity. Bereaved for the nation, they 
should be, and we feel that henceforth they are, the Nation's 
care. 

Resolved, That for him who is now the President of the Uni- 
ted States, and upon whom this darkest villany of rebellion has 
2 



10 Proceedings of the City Council 

laid the responsibility and duty of its complete extinction, we 
invoke the protection and the blessing of God, and the loyalty 
and confidence of our fellow-countrymen. May his mind be 
enlightened, his courage sustained, his hand strengthened, and 
his efforts directed and prospered in the great work before him ; 
until, in the full success of a stable peace, a united nation, and 
a vanquished and extirpated treason, he and the whole people 
may live to enjoy that great blessing for which the loved and 
lamented Lincoln prayed and toiled and died. 

Resolved, That His Honor the Mayor be, and he is hereby, 
requested to transmit a copy of the resolutions just passed to 
the President of the United States, asking him to communi- 
cate the same to the family of the deceased. 

Mr. Coggeshall offered the following resolutions, which 
were also adopted : — 

RESOLUTIONS APPOINTING A COMMITTEE OF AEEANGEMENTS, 

Resolved, That Messrs. Metcalf, Coggeshall, Gladding, 
Whitaker, Parkhurst, Robbins and Thomas, with Aldermen 
Jones and Lester, be appointed a committee to make such ar- 
rangements as may seem to them advisable in commemoration 
of the sad event that has fallen upon this nation. 

Resolved, That said committee be authorized to draw on 
the City Treasurer for such sum of money as may be required 
to defray the expenses of a proper expression of the love and 
respect which this community bear to the memory of the late 
President of the United States. 

Under and pursuant to the aforegoing resolutions, the Com- 
mittee of Arrangements issued the following notice : — 



0^' THE Death of Abraham Lincoln. 11 



MUNICIPAL OBSERVANCE OF THE PRESIDENT'S DAY OF 

MOURNING. 

The following arrangements have been made for the observ- 
ance of Thursday, June 1st, by the City Government, through 
the Committee ap])ointed for that purpose. 

A procession will be formed from the Council Chamber, 
under the direction of the City Marshal, at 3J o'clock, r. m., 
in the following order : — 

Detachment of Police. 

Band. 

Committee of Arrangements. 

Orator of the Day and Officiating Clergymen. 

City Marshal. 
His Honor the Mayor and Board of Aldermen. 

Members of the Common Council. 

City Clerk and Clerk of the Common Council. 

City Officers. 

His Excellency the Governor and Staff. 

Militia Officers, General, Regimental, Line and Staff. 

His Honor the Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State. 

Attorney General, State Auditor and General Treasurer. 

United States Senators and liepresentatives. 

Officers of the United States Army and Navy. 

Retired Officers of the United States Army and Navy. 

Judges of State Courts and Clerks. 

District Judge, Attorney, Clerk and Marshal. 

Officers of the Customs and Post Office Department. 

Members of the State Legislature. 

Ex-Governors. 

Ex-Mayors. 

Members elect of the City Government. 

Members of the School Committee. 



12 Proceedings of the City Council 

Superintendent of Public Schools, and Grammar Masters. 

Clergymen of the City and vicinity. 

President and Officers of Brown University. 

President and Officers of all Civic Bodies. 

The procession will march to the Beneficent Congregational 
Church, on Broad street, where an Oration will be delivered 
by the Hon. William Binney, and appropriate services will be 
held, commencing at 4 o'clock. 

Persons intending to join the procession will meet at the 
Council Chamber at 3 o'clock p. m. 



ORDER OF SERVICES 

ON THE DAY An'OINTED BY THE I'KESIDENT OF THE UNHED STATES AS 
A DAY OF HUMILIATION AND MOUllNING FOR THE DEATH OF ABRA- 
HAM LINCOLN, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNFTED STATES: HELD IN 
THE BENEFICENT CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, BEFORE THE CITY GOV- 
ERNMENT AND CITIZENS OF THE CITY OF PROVIDENCE, THURSDAY, 
JUNE 1, 1865. 

E. A. Kelley, Organist and Music Director. 



1. Voluntary on the Organ. Funeral March. Battiste. 

2. Chorus. Columbia Mourns Neukomm. 

Columbia, mourn ! His course is o'er; the brave, the mighty is no more! 
Mourn, Columbia! let all your streams of sorrow flow. We have sinned; we 
fell; we scorned our God! He died beneath the assassin's rod. O day of bit- 
terness! O day of woe! Mourn, Columbia! Mourn! 

3. Reading the Scriptures. 

4. Quartette Spohr. 

Blest are the dei)arted who in the Lord are sleeping. 

o. Prayer. 

<i. Chorus for men's voices. "Integer ViT^." Flcniinfj^ 



On the Death of Abraham Lincoln. 13 

" He who is uprisht, kind, and free from errors, 
Seeks not tlie aid of men to K"^rd him ; 
Calmly he moves, untouched by guilty terrors, 
Strong in his virtues. 

"Tranquil and peaceful is his path to heaven, 
Where, in the brightness of the Saviour's presence, 
Souls of the martyrs, purified by suflF'ring, 
Wait to receive him. 

"Leader and martyr, fallen in his armor! 
Lives yet our Captain, strong is our salvation, 
Fails not our victory, dies not the nation, — 
Christ our deliv'rer." 

7. Oration, by William Binney, Esq. 

8. Chorus. " I HEARD A Voice." . . . E. A. Kelley. 

"I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me. Write, from henceforth 
blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors, and 
their works do follow them." 

9. Concluding Prayer. 

10. Hymn, by O. W. Holmes. 

Music— 0\A) HUNDKBD. 

O Lord of Hosts! Almighty King! 

Behold the sacrifice we bring! 
To every arm Thy strength impart, 
Thy Spirit shed through every heart. 

Wake in our breasts the living fires, 
The holy faith that warmed our sires: 
Thy hand hath made our nation free ; 
To die for her is serving Thee . 

God of all Nations! Sovereign Lord! 
In Thy dread name we draw the sword, 
We lift the starry flag on high, 
That fills with light our stormy sky. 

No more its flaming emblems wave 
To bar from hope the trembling slave; 
No more its radiant glories shine 
To blast with woe a child of Thine. 

From treason's rent, from murder's stain, 
Guard Thou its folds till Peace shall reign,— 
Till fort and field, till shore and sea, 
Join our loud anthem, Pkaise to Thee ! 

11. Benediction. 



OE ATION. 






CJ) ii \ T i O N . 



My Fellow Citizens : — 

WHEN a human life is transferred from this world, 
how seldom do we apprehend what has been 
done. Revelation assures us that for one immortal 
being, a catastrophe has been reached, more portentous 
than the dissolution of a world. Instmct and reason 
assent to the truth. Some momentary palpitations 
warn us of its import for ourselves, but the influence is 
feeble and evanescent. Here and there in retired spots, 
there is a pause. In isolated homes, there are a few 
sorrowing hearts. A few eyes drop bitter tears, a few 
prayers press up to God from the depths of a heaving 
breast, a corpse remains to be reverently committed to 
the earth, and the minister of God repeats his words of 
warning or of resignation. But the great aggregate 
of humanity advances in its solemn progress, scarcely 
conscious that an atom has been withdrawn from its 
bulk. The numberless activities of man are unrestrained. 
Ambition glows with unslackened fire, toil struggles 
with the same anxiety, science explores with undiverted 
attention, thought and fancy soar with unrestricted 
sweep, and the very mourners make haste to resume 
their places in the moving throng. 



1« OliATION. 

That majestic ocean current which borders our land 
moves ever on its destined course. From all sides, it is 
dissolving into the cold abyss which environs it, but the 
lightnings flash about it, the vapor exhales from it, and 
it presses onward tempering a continent, its energies 
the unconscious ministers of the Almighty's love. 

To the law which controls its movement there is no 
interruption, but that which humanity obeys is happily 
more yielding. Hence it is, that when the life with 
which we part has been conspicuous above its fellows, 
from whatever cause ; when the lustre of position, the 
splendor of talent, the radiance of virtue, or the glare of 
wealth, has fixed the eyes of men upon some unit of their 
number, we do for a moment stop. We turn our gaze 
from what is, to what has been ; and consent to ask of 
death, what life is. Yet the pause, at most, is brief 

But should there come a time when millions swell 
the note of lamentation, and the sun sets and rises 
again upon an unsubsided sorrow ; should we perceive 
the ordinary pursuits of a nation suspended, its usual 
interests laid aside, its common topics abjured ; and did 
we hear the throbbing of unnumbered hearts in the 
solemn unison of griefj we might feel assured that we 
then beheld humanity in the rarest and most majestic 
of its attitudes. 

Such a spectacle the American nation has but recently 
exhibited. If the deepest melancholy has surrounded 
it, it has yet been full of a gracious benediction. Like 
all great blessings, it has been purchased with a sacrifice, 
and the price we have paid for it has been our choicest 
and our best. The fullness and the value of the cost 
must remain for the future to disclose, but faith already 
invites us to regard it as the source of deep and lasting 



Oration. 10 

srood. It is because we acknowleds-e its matrnitude. and 
would learn what we may of its significance, that we 
are assembled here to-day. The President of the 
United States has summoned the nation to reflect upon 
its loss. The authorities of our city have responded to 
his request, and have appointed me to address you upon 
the solemn topic, and it is their wish which I obey. 

You have buried a murdered President. Your voices 
have swelled the mighty chorus of sorrow, which rose 
from the bosom of this continent. Every token of 
sympathy and grief, which outward act, or spoken word, 
or chastened thought, could render, has been shown by 
you. Every pulpit has grown eloquent upon the 
unparalleled theme. Tlie press, all over the land, has 
become the mouth-piece of the universal anguish. 
Private associations, the fraternities of trade and 
commerce, municipal and State governments, have 
made haste to offer their appreciative tributes to the 
dead, and to renew their allegiance to the livino;. A 
mournful procession has wound its slow course to the 
West, waking in hamlet and city the same touching 
response, and now the sacred remains which it carried 
with it rest in the soil of their western home. The 
pulses of life have resumed their ordinary beat. The 
interests of the living again occupy our thoughts. The 
future, with its expectations, anxieties and doubts, 
beckons us away from the past. The first fervor of your 
emotions has unavoidably subsided, but you refuse to 
part company with your grief, until it shall have yielded 
you its blessing. 

I am to speak to you of the life and character and 
death of Abraham Lincoln. But as I take that name 
upon my lips, how sensibly must I feel my incapacity. 



20 ' Oration. 

There are themes so rich that their affluence is oppres- 
sive. There are occasions so grand that they dwarf our 
powers and paralyze our energies. There are characters 
which dwell outside of description, because their ex- 
panse out-measures apprehension. If this be true, I 
appeal to you, if it was ever more so than now, and in 
reference to the present subject. If I can conceive of 
any qualities capable of doing justice to that subject, 
they would be those of the lamented dead. His keen 
sagacity, his ripened wisdom, his singleness of purpose, 
his manly sense, his firm and living faith, his all em- 
bracing charity, — these might approach the task nor 
dread discomfiture. They are unfortunately incommu- 
nicable. Their results are our legac}^ if we Avill accept 
it, but the qualities themselves are graces which man 
wins by conflict ; he can never receive them as a gift. 

One gift, however, the illustrious dead was able to 
confer upon the race, a rich and pregnant gift, holding 
in its grasp a thousand others scarce inferior to itself 
It is the sj)irit of his life. Phiin, unvarying, easily 
apprehended, stretching like a luminous thread through 
the line of his years, it gleams before us as obedience 
to the duty of the hour ; obedience unsolicitous of 
results, and asking of duty nothing but her Heaven 
signed credentials. That spirit I invoke for all ; I in- 
voke it for myself 

When a people is creating history, it seldom has a 
desire to transcribe it, or the leisure and capacity to 
read its current record aright. The physical and intel- 
lectual activities which such jDcriods evoke, have a 
re-active influence upon each other, which tends con- 
stantly to exaggeration. The ordinary and verified 
standards of feeling and judgment are overthrown. 



Oration. 21 

Events and men move before the eye in a confused 
whirl, where distinct vision is impossible. Small things 
from their nearness or the grotesqueness of their position 
seem great, while the great are too near to be fully 
embraced. Passions and prejudices, anxieties, hopes 
and fears, roll about us on all sides their volumes of 
mist. No height discloses itself from whose tranquil 
summit we can survey the panorama of commotion, nor 
could we ascend it, were it there. We are ourselves a 
part of the scene. History and her handmaid, biogra- 
phy, demand a more quiet period, and a point of greater 
distance, before they can commence their necessary 
work. All that can be produced at times like these is 
such an outline sketch as may gratify curiosity, or im- 
part a form to our vague conceptions. It will be the 
task of a day remote from this, to portray the magnifi- 
cent movement of destiny in this western world, and to 
paint the master spirit who linked himself to that des- 
tiny beyond all other men. because he bound himself to 
the eternal principles from which it was evolved. The 
duty of the present hour will be fulfilled, if 1 shall be 
able to place before you such a fragmentary outline as, 
while it gives no portrait of the man or time, lets some- 
thing of the grandeur of the one, of the goodness and 
greatness of the other, and of the relation between the 
two, shine through the gaps. 

Abraham Lincoln was born in what is now La-Rue 
county, Kentucky, on the 12th day of February, 1809, 
and in that comparative wilderness of a half-century 
ago, he passed the first six or seven years of his life. 
His parents were Virginians, of whom we know little 
more than their integrity and industry. Frontier life, 
in that day, was something which required and devel- 



22 Oration. 

oped the sturdier virtues, but it made small demand, as 
it gave but little scope, for the refinements of culture 
and taste. Thomas Lincoln, the father, was illiterate 
and poor. The labor of his hands was his support. 
Yet a sense of his own deficiencies sharpened the 
desire to educate his son, and his affection was at all 
times active in procuring for the boy such books and 
schooling as his own scanty means and the primitive 
neighborhood allowed. The mother was a religious 
woman, one of those to whom the. Bible is a real and 
living thing ; who make it a friend and guide, and who 
feel that all has been done for a child when his eyes and 
heart have been opened to its pages. At her side he 
learned to read the sacred volume, and throughout his 
trying and eventful life it is believed to have been ever 
at his own. 

Satisfied by experience that residence in a slave State 
was disastrous to one whose only capital was his labor, 
the father decided in 1816 to abandon this Kentucky 
home, which slavery degraded, and seek a new one on 
the free soil of Indiana, then about to be admitted into 
the Union. 

The spot selected was among the picturesque river 
bluffs of the Ohio. A clearing was soon made, a log- 
hut erected, and this was the home of Lincoln until 
1830. Thirteen years, eventful enough to him and to us, 
though unmarked by outward signs of their significance, 
were passed in this cabin. It is easy to picture to our- 
selves that simple home. There was abundance of 
work lor those young hands in subduing an untamed 
nature. There were hardship and exposure in many 
forms to strengthen his bodily frame, and toughen his 
couraoje and endurance. If the intercourse and advan- 



Oration. 23 

tages of more developed civilization were wanting, so 
also were its allurements and dissipations. Earnestness, 
sobriety and honest toil spread a pure and invigorating 
atmosphere about the spot. There were the evenings 
for such study as was in his power, and for the 
thoughts and reflection to which it might give rise. 
Books, of course, were few, but they were not wholly 
absent, and such as he procured would seem to have 
had a singular fitness for his mental and moral growth. 

In 1831, a new emigration conducted the family to 
the central part of Illinois. Again the son's labor is 
given to build the house and fence the farm. But the 
time had come for him to leave the paternal roof and 
try the world for himself. A vigorous and hardy frame, 
a courageous and truthful soul, a clear and strong intel- 
ligence, a hopeful spirit and a simple but steady faith 
in God and the right, were his outfit ; and it must be 
confessed neither scanty nor ill-assorted. Of the world 
outside he knew but little ; of that within himself, he 
had learned what such a life alone could teach. 

From this time until 1837, when we find him prac- 
tising law in Springfield, Illinois, he tried most of the 
phases of western life, always earnestly, and usually 
with success. Farm laborer, clerk, storekeeper, county 
surveyor, postmaster and member of the Legislature, 
each in its turn, and all the while studying diligently 
at the law, which he had chosen for his ultimate profes- 
sion, he omitted no opportunity for self-support or 
usefulness; and that some coloring of military life 
might not be wanting, he served with fidelity and merit 
as Captain of volunteers in the Indian war of 1832. 

Until 1858, Mr. Lincoln continued to practice law, 
with a growing reputation for ability, and to attract the 



24 Oration. 

regcard of his fellow citizens, who selected him to repre- 
sent them in the Congress of 1847. 

But it was in 1858, that what had thus far been a 
local reputation expanded into a national one ; and 
that the great Republican party of the free States began 
to look to Mr. Lincoln as among the ablest and most 
earnest of its leaders. 

Viewed merely by himself at this time, he presents 
a striking figure. Tall and vigorous in body, and with a 
mind quite as healthful, there was neither elegance nor 
grace in either. The society in which he moved did 
not exact, and had not developed them. His virtues 
and intelligence were distinctively American. His 
training had been equally so, and he was the natural 
product of the two. It was not the figure of a hero, 
or which fancy could hope to develop into the heroic. 
But it was the figure of a man, to be respected, to 
be loved, to be trusted ; of a strong, truthful, genial, 
quick-witted man, a reliable and powerful friend, a dan- 
gerous but fair antagonist. Thought and action alike 
betokened in him unused and undeveloped strength. 
But it seems to me that we shall fail to see him in his 
true proportions, if we overlook the remarkable back- 
ground from which he stood relieved. Let me attempt 
briefly to sketch that background, as it appears to me. 

The curious naturalist who follows the trail of our 
western emigration, is often struck by the presence of 
weeds along the track, for which he finds it difficult to 
account. They are not indigenous to the soil, nor are 
they found except where the foot of the foreigner has 
been. No conscious hand has sown them. They are 
the growth of those unconsidered seeds, which were 
native to the stranger's home. They have clung to 



Or. in ox. 25 

him imperceived through his ocean voyage, and equally 
unconsciously are scattered about his new abode. The 
seminal princij^les of that outgrowth of thought and 
feeling which we call civilization propagate themselves 
as spontaneously, and still more widely, than the germs 
of vegetable life. Less various perhaps, they are more 
constant to their type, and philosophy works backward 
from their presence to their origin, with a confidence 
that is seldom misplaced. 

In the year 1G20, two vessels dropped their anchors 
in waters which are already emblematic, and must re- 
main so to the American eye, through all time. Both 
voyages were projected in the same foreign land, and 
may be fairly said to have represented the conflicting 
characteristics of the same people. Dutch piety and 
love of freedom bade God-speed to the men who landed 
by the Massachusetts Bay, with liberty and law in their 
hands. Dutch enterprise and love of wealth sent their 
cargo of slaves to the banks of the James. Unnum- 
bered and unnoticed seeds of good and evil came with 
both. The life of each began at once to beget new life, 
and as their forms drew near to each other, and the 
border land between the two began to fill, reciprocal 
action commenced and a hybrid growth sprung up. 
Two forms of civilization, one where capital and labor 
were bound by an equal and beneficial alliance, and the 
other where labor was the property and bond slave of 
capital, had each selected its domain in a new and pro- 
lific world, and thenceforth they grew together, auxili- 
aries in noble works, in works of imperishable benefit, 
but radical, though immature, antagonists. 

During our Colonial life, and especially in the condi- 
tion of public sentiment, not only in the mother country, 

4 



26 Oration. 

but throughout the world, this essential antagonism 
was almost unperceived. But it was there none the 
less, and none the less essential. When the fetters of 
colonial subjection were first broken, the conflict began. 
Liberty sent forth her noble protest, in the Declaration 
of Independence, but slavery had already tampered 
with the language in which it was expressed. But 
when the removal of all foreign control left the nation 
to the influences of her own systems, it assumed its real 
position. The great territorial ordinance would have 
been its death blow, but it turned aside the stroke. 
The constitution might have destroyed it, but it moulded 
the constitution to its ends. Working gradually, but 
working steadily, it created the fugitive slave clause, 
and forged that chain in which so many of freedom's 
giants have writhed in vain. Under the constitution 
its struggles have been powerful and unintermitted, and 
in early opposing Congressional interference with the 
territories not included in the ordinance of 1787, it 
prepared the ground for all its future triumphs. It 
was combatted steadily, but it grew. Circumstances 
favored it beyond anticipation. The slave trade in the 
appointed time had become illegal ; moral and religious 
sentiment was glowing, a dreadful perception of its in- 
herent wrong began to grow even in its midst ; but 
alongside, and ready for the use, were allies destined to 
more than counterbalance their combined force. The 
cotton plant waved its pods prophetic of future wealth. 
The genius of Whitney became the property of the 
world, and lent its vital aid. The vast territory of 
Louisiana was ceded to the Union, and stretched out its 
arms to both. A rich expanse lay before it, and it made 
haste to enter. The constitution was ignored, that 



Oration. 27 

blessings for which it provided no channel might swell 
in upon the land, with a golden irrigation. A new 
departure was taken, a different voyage commenced ; 
and Slavery sprang gaily and defiantly to the helm. 

The progress thence was rapid and fotal. Farewell 
now to apologetic defense. Slave trading, slave breed- 
ing became the policy, because they seemed the neces- 
sity of the time. Slavery was no longer with the 
South an evil to be tolerated ; it was a right to be sus- 
tained. The intellect of the South trained itself for the 
work. The armories of the past and present were ran- 
sacked for weapons of protection or assault. The chimera 
of secession, fostered into new vigor and bulk, planted 
its horrid form before the sacred institution, and forbade 
aproach. The religion of Christ and the creed of popu- 
lar sovereignty were alike bid to speak in its behalf 
The destinies of free millions were as nothino; to it. 
The legislature of the only great Republic of the world 
was but its tool. The elements were unchained, and 
the indifference, the passions, the tremors and the as- 
pirations of a great race heaved in unorganized tumult. 
The freeman felt that his birthriQ:ht was in dano;er. 
The slaveholder felt his power and grew furious iu its 
use ; and all around stood the timid virtues, hoping all 
things, believing all things, daring nothing. There 
was a party rising in the land a million strong. It had 
a prescience, a courage, a purpose, which were its 
strength ; but it needed a man. This was the back- 
ground as I view it, against which, in 1858, Mr. Lincoln 
stood forth on the prairie land of Illinois. 

The contest which he entered was for a Senatorship, 
the antagonist was Stephen A. Douglas, the audience was 
the freemen of the West of every shade of opinion ; 



28 Oratiox. 

but the battle and the victory were for human freedom, 
and for all coming time, and nobly did he open the 
immortal tournament. 

Listen to his words in the first of those speeches 
which convulsed Illinois in the summer and autumn of 
1858. Truly, the trumpet gave no uncertain sound. 
" If we could first know where we are, and whither 
we are tending, we could better judge what to do, 
and how to do it. We are now far in the fifth year 
since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and 
confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. 
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has 
not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. 
In my opinion it will not cease, imtil a crisis has been 
reached and passed. ' A house divided against itself 
cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure 
permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house 
to fall, but I do expect, it will cease to be divided. It 
will become all one thing- or all the other." Words 
remarkable enough in prediction, but how much more 
so in their result. 

Here, we cannot but observe, was no announcement 
of a policy. There was not even an expression of a 
wish. A. plain statement of that indwelling fiiith 
which is so often unconscious prophecy — that was all. 
From a foremost man of a young and vigorous party 
we might have looked for something different. A party 
Shibboleth, a code of tactics, an appeal to passion, 
or to prejudice ; a battle cry ; these are what we might 
have expected, but there came only a temperate but 
far reaching declaration of belief Only a few years 
have passed, and it is the demonstrated creed of a race. 



Oratiox. 29 

At that time, if there was anything chiefly needed, 
it was a faith such as this. A foith not in policies, not 
in expediencies, not in plans, or compromises, or hostil- 
ities as such ; but in essential truths. It was Mr. Lin- 
coln's great advantage that he possessed it. It was his 
great power that he was always possessed by it. 
Throughout all that vigorous and animated struggle, 
contending against an antagonist of undisputed force and 
great popularity, and one well skilled to use every faculty 
of a vigorous mind, a robust body, an iron will, a voice 
of rare compass and expression, and a nature of noble 
and attractive traits, in swaying the judgments, the 
feelings, and the sympathies of men ; this uncouth but 
still attractive western lawyer, held that faith on high, 
and conquered in its sign. The immediate prize, it is 
true, was lost ; Mr. Douglas was again elected Senator ; 
but the people understood Mr. Lincoln, and his destiny 
was fixed. 

If we follow the course of that debate and of the 
speeches auxiliary to it, we shall be forced to confess 
that faith was far from being his only power, though it 
gave momentum to the rest. Every one of them ex- 
hibits a man whose conception of ideas was clear, 
defined and comprehensive ; his perception of things 
distinct, and of relations, remarkably so ; his logic 
thorough and connected, though not concise ; his 
memory retentive of analogies ; his language plain, but 
vigorous, apt, descriptive and copious ; his fancy alive, 
but never in excited action ; his wit homely, but bright 
and pointed. All these faculties he used easily, and 
effectively, holding the sympathies by an unruflled 
bearing, a genial temper, a courageous port, and hy the 
mysterious emanations of a truth loving, truth speak- 



30 Oration. 

ing, truth seeking soul. Ithuriel's spear could not have 
more clearly revealed the sophistry concealed in popu- 
lar sovereignty, than did his pointed sentences. The 
nicest analysis of science could not expose more surely 
than his lips, the essential contrast of slavery the mat- 
ter of indifference, with slavery the moral, social and 
political wrong. He acknowledged the necessity of 
parties, and, therefore, was a party man. He accepted 
a party platform because he approved it, while he was 
slow to commit himself to its modes of action. He 
understood the constitution of his country, and gave it 
an unreserved obedience. To the State rights and 
State obligations which it guarantied, he adhered. 
His line of policy towards the slave question was not 
clear, nor was it, perhaps, so far stretching as that of 
his party ; but his vision of the future and his estimate 
of the thing, were surpassed in none. There was room 
for growth, and capacity as well. And the growth in 
due time came. 

This man, such as I have endeavored to sketch him, 
became, in 1861, the duly elected President of the 
United States ; and history will record that he was so 
announced to the assembled Senate and House of 
Representatives, by Vice-President Breckinridge, his 
rival at the time, his assassin since. 

Since that announcement, four awful years have 
swept over the land. They have carried to the dusky 
past, their swollen record of crime and virtue. Thick 
thronging incidents of victory and defeat, of apostacy 
and faith, of cruelty and charity, of dismay and exul- 
tation, have burdened the memory almost beyond its 
power ; and overtaxed emotion in vain endeavors to 
renew its earlier agitations. Still the time is not yet 



Oration. 31 

too distant for us to recall sometliinsc of that irloom, in 
which the great crime of our century came to the 
birth. 

Strange to say, the election of Mr. Lincoln was 
hailed with greater joy at the South than at the North. 
It was the note of destiny for both, and one at least 
understood it. Convinced that cajolery and menace 
were henceforth impotent, the South maddened itself 
for the assault. Legislatures and conventions plied 
their insidious work. The press lit up its baleful fires, 
eloquence poured its venomed stream into hearts fevered 
by passion, and minds tainted with sophistry and false- 
hood ; arms threw their angry gleam abroad, and 
amid the horrid din, the demon of civil war awoke to 
his feast of blood. At the seat of government the 
scene was even more disheartening. Imbecility sat 
inert in the Presidential chair. Disloyalty plotted in 
the bureaus and offices, in the army and navy, in the 
highways and byways of the Capital. Traitors legis- 
lated in the Congress of the country they had sworn 
to destroy. Americans dared to demand a partition of 
the soil won by the blood of our common ancestors 
And all the while Congress bent its energies to appease, 
to soothe, to strengthen the existing guaranties of 
slavery, and impart to it new life. And as if all that were 
not enough, a peace convention lent its well meant aid, 
in proposals which needed but acceptance by the South 
to rivet slavery for ever on the land. 

It was for such a scene as this that Mr. Lincoln left 
his humble home in February, 1861. Since his election 
he had kept silence on the questions that agitated the 
country, and men waited for his utterances with anxiety. 
The wisest of his countrymen did not foresee what the 



32 Oration. 

future had in store. He foresaw, perhajDS, less than 
some of them. But a chana-e had come over him that 
is well worthy of note. The old faith was doubtless 
there — the old assurance that the house divided could 
not stand — that sooner or later the land would be all 
slave or all free ; but there was no longer allusion to 
it. The leader of a party was now the ruler of a 
nation, and he felt the full import of the change. 
Abjuring personal predilections and party views, the 
safety of the entire nation was henceforth his aim. It 
became his purpose the instant it became his duty; and 
until the hour of his death it was the governing princi- 
ple of his life. Through evil report and good report, 
in success and disaster, against friends and enemies, he 
held fast to that ; and the hour is already here when 
we can thank God that he did so. That he thought 
and felt deeply no one can doubt, but it was with a 
mind unclouded by prejudgment, and a heart emptied 
of selfishness. 

" My friends," said he, as he parted from that home 
which he never saw again, " No one not in my position 
can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. I 
know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty 
devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater than 
that which has devolved upon any other man since the 
days of Washington. He never would have succeeded 
except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he 
at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed with- 
out the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on 
the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for sup- 
port; and I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I 
may receive that Divine assistance, without which I 
cannot succeed, but with which success is certain." 



Ol'ATTOX. :i:i 

" We will pray for you," was the feeling response. As 
we read these words over his grave, who so inert as not 
to be moved by their solemnity ! 

All through that journey, whose jubilant life contrasts 
now so painfully with the return of his funeral train 
over much of the same ground, this self-restraint and 
watchfulness, — this reliance on God and reference of all 
to his direction, — blend themselves with words of wis- 
dom, of caution or remonstrance. '• I will only say, that 
to the salvation of the Union there needs but one single 
thing, — the hearts of a people like you." And again : 
" I wish you to remember, now and forever, that it is 
your business and not mine," — were his words in Indiana. 

" I have not maintained silence for want of anxiety. 
In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes of the 
present, and without a precedent that could enable me 
to judge the past, it has seemed fitting that, before 
speaking of the difficulties of the country, I should have 
gained a view of the whole field, so as to be sure after 
all." Such were his words in Ohio. Here and there 
touching the sensitive spots of our disorder, he shows 
his own idea ol" the malady, but always suggestively. 
Not concealing entirely his own opinion, he hints it 
almost always in a query. " Fellow-citizens," he says, 
" I am not asserting anything ; I am merely asking 
questions for you to consider." 

In the metropolis of New York, he speaks somewhat 
more precisely : '• Nothing shall ever bring me to con- 
sent — willingly to consent — to the destruction of this 
Union, unless it would be the thing for which the Union 
itself was made. I understand that the ship is made for 
the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long 
as the ship is safe with the cargo, it shall not be aban- 



34 Oration. 

doned." And in New Jersey : " The man does not live 
who is more devoted to peace than I am, or who would 
do more to preserve it ; but it may be necessary to put 
the foot down firmly." 

At that touching scene in the early morning of the 
22d of February, when about to raise the country's 
flag over the birth-place of Independence, he rose to a 
loftier strain. "I have often inquired of myself," he 
said, "what great principle or idea it was that kept this 
confederacy so long together. It was not the mere 
separation of the colonies from the mother country, but 
this sentiment in the Declaration of Independence, which 
gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but 
I hope to the world for all future time. This is the 
sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. 
Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that 
basis ? If it can, I will consider myself one of the hap- 
piest men in the world, if I can help to save it. If it 
cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly 
awful. But if this country cannot be saved without 
giving up that principle, I was about to say I would 
rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender," — 
and then his sturdy arm sent the colors to the masthead, 
where God and that arm have kept them since. 

A few short years, and he lay a corpse on that very 
spot, assassinated while defending that very principle ; 
but, thank God, not until it had been triumphantly sus- 
tained, and the Union saved upon it. 

From the moment when Mr. Lincoln entered upon 
his duties as President, all narrative is beyond the limits 
of this discourse. His actions entwined themselves 
closely with the movements of the nation, themselves 
various and complicated. He was identified not only 



Oration. 35 

in reality, but in the popular apprehension, with all 
that was done or attempted, great or small. Criticism, 
favorable or adverse, usually fastened itself in the ulti- 
mate upon him, often, undoubtedly, w^ithout propriety. 
But the popular mind continues to recognize certain 
questions which were treated, during his administration, 
as of undisputed pre-eminence, and to feel that he held 
with them a close, and, in effect, controlling relation. 
His peculiar qualities were displayed in dealing with 
such, from time to time, and there is a conviction that 
his reputation will connect itself with them in the future. 
His relation to some of these may well occupy our re- 
maining: time. 

Mr. Lincoln was blessed with the faculty, by no means 
common, of viewing things in their precise and existing 
relations. He saw things almost always as they really 
were, and dealt with them as he saw them. However 
confused the details, his penetration extricated the 
essential, and his strong good sense and sterling princi- 
ple applied themselves exclusively to these. Few men 
have been quicker to see both the weak and the strong 
point of a position or statement, or more happy in the 
pointed and simple way in which he exposed and met 
them. 

This sagacity was conspicuous in the attitude which 
he assumed towards the South at the very outset of 
his administration. Inexperienced in the details of 
his new duties ; surrounded by friends who knew too 
little of him to give him their confidence, and too little 
of the real state of affairs to make their counsel safe; 
watched by enemies on every hand ; beset by spies and 
the innumerable horde of flatterers and parasites and 
politicians and self seekers who infest the capital at such 



36 Oration. 

a time ; with a powerful voice from the north urging 
him to instant and vigorous action, and confusing its 
tones with the entreaties of others to pause, beware, 
and do nothing ; there would have been small room for 
wonder if his vision had been obscured and the very 
power of action destroyed. But he rose above them all 
and surveyed the field for himself 

Rebellion stood quivering upon the brink of the 
assault. Ready to strike, it yet longed for some pretext 
for the blow, — something that ingenuity might show to 
the ignorant world as the justification of its overt act. 
A passionate or vain man, a theorist, a partisan, — had 
such been at our head, — would probably have sprung 
into the melee, drowning the clamor by his own more 
decided voice; but it would have been a proof of folly 
and not of wisdom. Such a man would have given the 
rebellion its desire, and have prejudiced our cause from 
the start. But the President perceived the danger and 
avoided it. He saw that the war, if it came, must not 
only he. but record itself as unprovoked. Upon this 
idea his inaugural had been constructed. " In your 
hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, not in mine, 
is the momentous issue of civil war. The government 
will not assail you." " You can have no conflict with- 
out being yourselves the aggressors." " We must not 
be enemies." 

Such were his words, dictated not alone by a kind 
spirit, but by a true sagacity. Acting upon them, he 
steadily refused to abandon Fort Sumter and thus give 
countenance to the rebellion. He was as firm against 
the now impracticable work of its reinforcement, so 
capable of distortion into an aggressive act. He decided 
upon a peaceful attempt to feed its starving garrison. 



Oration. 87 

And this was enough. Sumter fell, Init the first gun 
was a rebel and not a Union gun ; and its discharge 
swept away forever, from the South, the subterfuge of 
self-defense. Had he done differently, the North would 
undoubtedly have risen in defense of its outraged flag, 
but its magnificent unanimity might have been wanting. 

History must concede it as a high merit to Mr. Lin- 
coln, that, from the outset, he had a purpose, but not a 
policy; a determinate end, but no predetermined means; 
a guiding principle, but no controlling rules. In his 
treatment of the Border States, we can now see the 
truth and value of this trait. His great object was to 
strengthen the Union, and weaken the rebellion, and he 
viewed their position principally as it bore on this. The 
result we confess to have been of incalculable value, but 
his course met with little favor, at the time, in any 
quarter. None saw it aright, until they saw it in its 
efiects. Yet his instructions to a military governor, 
for a similar scene and at a later day, would seem to 
show that he measured the crisis very fairly. " If," he 
writes^ " both parties or neither shall abuse you, you 
will probably be about right. Beware of being praised 
by one and assailed by the other." 

Another conspicuous quality in Mr. Lincoln's charac- 
ter was his power to recognize and appreciate popular 
opinion. Wise enough to believe, as well as acknowl- 
edge, that it was the living princijDle of every free 
community, and to confess that neither truth nor error 
could be permanently affected until brought in direct 
contact with it ; he always bent his energies to discover 
what that opinion was before he attempted to guide or 
alter it. The quality was ingrained, and continued to 
mark him to the last. He looked beneath the apparent 



38 Oration. 

to the real, and distinguished a genuine from a spurious 
public sentiment, with skill that seemed intuitive. It 
was, however, the product of labor and reflection. 
Trusting always to the people, because he felt that 
there was nothing higher among men on which to rely, 
he often seemed vacillating and uncertain while seeking 
what that people really willed. Yet it may be safely 
said, that among all his qualities none was more valua- 
ble to his countrymen than this. No estimate which he 
could have formed, at any time, of the popular feeling 
could have long held true, for it was in a course of con- 
tinuous growth. With a rare self-abandonment he grew 
ever with it. Had he shaped his course by their will, 
at any date of his career, and rigidly adhered to it, no 
one now so blind as not to see that ruin to him or to 
them must have ensued. The country was the people's 
more than his. The war was the " people's war ; " the 
future was the people's destiny and birthright ; and he 
felt that if the people willed the right, the right, under 
God, would triumph, while, for the opposite contingency, 
caution preserved his influence unimpaired. Every day 
was doing its work of enlightenment upon the popular 
mind and heart. Time and experience were potent 
and salutary agents. His confidence in them had never 
yet been misplaced. He must trust them still. 

This view was the key to his action upon the great 
and vexed question of emancipation. His own opinion 
of slavery was too clear for misconstruction. It had 
been expressed openly and often. "I am naturally 
anti-slavery," he wTites to a friend in Kentucky. " If 
slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot re- 
member the time when I did not so think and feel ; but 
I have never understood that the Presidency conferred 



Oration. 39 

upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this 
judgment and feeling." He felt that the Union Avas to 
be preserved by that course which would rally about it 
the most defenders, and leave it, when preserved, what 
the people willed it. When, at the first, he refused to 
interfere with slavery as an institution, he was bitterly 
opposed by many of his friends, but he was right. The 
time had not come. When he overruled the proclama- 
tions of Hunter and Fremont, and the advice of the 
Secretary of War, to arm the blacks, he taxed the fiiith 
of his adherents to its utmost stretch. The indifference 
and hostility of Europe were, or claimed to be, justified 
by his course, but he held firm. The time had not 
come. Personally preferring a compensated emancipa- 
tion, he suggested it, and devised the means, arguing 
and expostulating, meanwhile, with the loyal slavehold- 
ers, but watching the public will ; and when the pro- 
clamation came, it is safe to say, that it could no more 
have been withheld, with safety to the cause, than it 
could have been issued at an earlier day. The fiery 
trials of the war had educated the sentiment of the 
whole people, up to the wishes and judgment of the 
approving few. Then the time had come. Then it be- 
came safe. Then it became his determination, and from 
that point there was no receding. 

A policy of patient watchfulness is seldom grateful 
to the age to which it may be, nevertheless, essential. 
The positive, the active, the decided, — these address 
themselves with favor to the mass of men, while even 
for the thoughtful they have a charm easily mistaken 
for a merit. History reverses the hasty decisions of the 
past, and we adopt her verdict, even while making fresh 
ones for her disapproval. We confess the indistinctness 



40 Oration. 

of our own views and the immaturity of our own opin- 
ions, but with a strange confidence we demand their 
acceptance by our fellow-men. Hesitation in others, we 
are apt to call Aveakness ; caution, timidity ; inquiry, a 
want of faith ; deliberation, cowardice ; and the change 
of actions, to suit the change of circumstance, is dis- 
honesty, if not apostacy. Something of all this may 
have been permitted by us to tarnish the fame of our 
noble President, while he lived, but the mark is already 
obliterated. The tears of the nation have washed it 
from our sight. 

Let us not suppose, my friends, that it cost nothing 
to Mr. Lincoln to pursue the course which he did ; that 
while waiting for the auspicious hour, he was indifferent 
to its delay ; that the popular desire was his law, but 
not his solicitude. We should but little sound the 
depths of that noble nature did we think it. Breathing 
from his youth the air of perfect freedom, maturing 
under its gracious influences, drawing his patriotism 
from the fountain head, and enriching it with the wis- 
dom of the purest American patriots ; was his the only 
cold heart of the race ? Dedicated to the faith that 
slavery is sin, inspired by the conviction that this sin 
would yet be done away, the moral sting of slavery 
touched him to the quick. " The physical horrors " he 
saw, as well as we. The " two hundred and fifty years " 
of wrong ; the ''bondman's unrequited toil ; " " the drops 
of blood drawn by the lash ; " the scarred limb ; the 
tortured body ; the scalding tears, — were felt by him as 
truly as by us. He could glow at the thought of out- 
raged virtue, of blighted affection, of childhood torn 
from its parents, of parents from each other. No kind- 
lier heart in all the land responded to their woe. Was 



Oration. 41 

he insensible to the plaudits of the good, and did he not 
well know that the noblest wreath which history twines 
is for the liberator of mankind ? Surely, his eye could 
range over a more expanded field than ours, and while 
it saw the coming future, with its hundreds of millions 
of happy Americans, his ear could catch something of 
the swelling sounds of praise with which they recog- 
nized their great benefactor. Was there no temptation 
in the sight ? Was there nothing within, which could 
invite, — aye, command to make haste and seize the 
magnificent prize? Do you think that his hand did not 
tingle to trace those words which should gleam on the 
brow of the ages, — the^a^ Ubertas of a new creation? 
Had he no memories of the honored dead, — no inspir- 
ing hopes of joining, as an equal, their glorified ranks ? 
Had he not read those words of precious promise, — 
" Because ye did it to the least of these ye did it unto 
me ? " We may not believe it. Every impulse, every 
temptation, every implied command which could have 
addressed itself to any of his countrymen, had a voice 
for him. But while he heard them, they did not mis- 
lead. Behind their lovely and alluring shapes, the 
Nation reared its austere but hallowed form. " I am 
your care, and I alone," it said in tones he could not 
fail to hear. '• You and these sulferers are mine." He 
held his hand. He waited and stru":<2:led on. He 
moved yet awhile in the low grounds of expostulation, 
but the day at length came when he ascended the 
height. That glorious proclamation, whose fervid 
breath melted the fetters from a million limbs, and 
breathed, " a soul under the ribs of Death/' took life at 
last. His spirit entered its immortal words, and his 
hand, — the hand that free labor had dignified and 



42 Oration. 

formed, — set to its majestic attestation of God and man, 
the now deathless name of Abraham Lincoln ! May we 
not reverently feel that God looked upon all his work, 
" and it was very good ? " 

The most dangerous antagonist with which our pe- 
culiar system had to contend, was the fallacy of seces- 
sion. It was no novelty to Mr. Lincoln, nor had he 
failed to comprehend it perfectly; and he perceived at 
once the advantage of exposing it to the popular eye, 
in its absurdity as well as its majignity. It was not 
easy to overturn what the ablest minds of the nation 
had so carefully established. But in his first message 
to Congress, at its extra session, he undertook the task. 
Addressing that body, his arguments and language were 
brought to the level of his fellow-countrymen, to whom 
they were really directed. A few vigorous strokes, a 
few pointed analogies, a short but perfect application of 
the '^reductio ad ahsurdum" and the creature of per- 
verted ingenuity stood exposed. 

" It might seem, at first thought," he says, " to be of 
little difference whether the present movement at the 
South ^e called secession, or rebellion. The movers, 
however, understand the difference. At the beginning, 
they knew they could never raise their treason to any 
respectable magnitude, by any name that implies viola- 
tion of law." 

" They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if con- 
ceded, is followed by perfectly logical steps to the com- 
plete destruction of the Union." 

" With rebellion thus sugar-coated, they have been 
drugging the public mind of their section for more than 
thirty years." 

^' The Union is older than the States." 



Oration. 4:5 

" The States have their status in the Union., and tliey 
have no other legal status." 

" No one of them ever had a State constitution, inde- 
pendent of the Union." 

''A power to destroy the government itself has never 
been known as a governmental power." 

" These politicians are not partial to that power which 
made the Constitution, and speaks from the Preamble, 
calling itself, ' We, the People.' " 

" The central idea of secession is the essence of 
anarchy." 

Such are but a few of the home thrusts which he 
dealt, every one of which, an average American could 
comprehend and feel. The intellects of a Marshall, a 
Story and a Webster have exercised themselves with 
triumph upon the same theme, but the quaint words of 
this unlettered Western law^3^er, produced an effect 
greater than they all. 

There is no principle, — and there should be none, — 
dearer to a free people than that of their personal lib- 
erty. Freemen, in all times, have clung to it as a right 
too sacred to be limited in terms; and those time-honored 
words, " habeas corjms" which, to the popular mind, 
stand its all-powerful guardians, have acquired for them 
a consecrated, but undefined meaning. The exigencies 
of our conflict brought Mr. Lincoln into collision with 
this sentiment, though, perhaps, never with the right ; 
and few measures of his administration have subjected 
him to a fiercer onslaught than his suspension of that 
writ. Whether his view of the constitution, as desig- 
nating the department which should exercise the power, 
in a given case, was right or wrong, is a point upon 
which able men still differ. That the right to exercise 



44 O RATIO K. 

it existed, none disputed at the time. That it was 
necessary to exercise it, few, at this day, dispute. That 
no injury to the liberties of the people was designed, is 
universally allowed. That none has resulted is patent 
to all. If the candid criticism of the future shall find 
that Mr. Lincoln erred, it will probably be in his opin- 
ion, that the power could be delegated by him. But 
this, if an error, he himself corrected ; and throughout 
his whole course, he ever referred his conduct to Con- 
gress, and received its support and endorsement. He 
held to the axiom that " The public safety is the highest 
law ', " he knew that public liberty demands, at times, 
the subordination of private liberty, and with what 
adroitness and point did he popularize the idea. 

" I can no more be persuaded that the Government 
can constitutionally take no strong measures in time of 
rebellion, because it can be shown that the same could 
not be lawfully taken in time of peace, than I can be 
persuaded that a particular drug is not good medicine 
for a sick man, because it can be shown not to be good 
food for a well one." And again : when alluding to the 
sup2>osed risk that the public would acquire a relish for 
arbitrary power, dangerous to its liberties, he doubts 
that '^ a man could contract so strong an appetite for 
emetics, during temporary illness, as to persist in feed- 
ing on them during the remainder of his healthful life." 
There are more elegant figures, and there are weaker. 

Without a trace of that personal ambition which can 
trample on liberty while claiming to defend it ; without 
a single feeling of hostility to even the bitterest oppo- 
nent ; with a calm temper, which knew not the mean- 
ing of revenge ; with a cool courage that never magni- 
fied dangers, and an habitual self-control, which gave 



Oratkjx. 45 

an air almost of hesitancy to his conduct, — his would 
have been the last hand to deal a blow, whether open 
or covert, at the liberties of the humblest of the race. 
It was because he died for those liberties that you weep 
him now. 

While dealing prominently with the active principles 
of the rebellion, it should not be imacrined that the 
President overlooked any of the great national interests 
confided to him. The financial, industrial, and, espe- 
cially, the agricultural prospects of the country, wei-e 
objects of his constant care, and of frequent and judi- 
cious recommendations. In all the departments of 
government, he had the aid of zealous and able men, — 
men wdiom the country will ever delight to honor with 
her grateful praise ; but it belongs to his own credit, that, 
while they all received his confidence and a chivalrous 
support, not one of them was ever able to assume a 
control over his intelligence or conduct, which could 
prejudice the one, or disparage the other. If we would 
estimate this as we should, we need not look to the 
Buckinghams and Butes, the Mazarins or Godoys, of 
former times, or the Antonellis and DeMornys, of to- 
day ; the short line of our own governmental history 
will — 

" Give ample room and verge enough, 
The character to trace." 

Towards foreign countries, Mr. Lincoln preserved a 
deportment of which Americans may be proud, and for 
which they can never be too grateful ; for he defended 
their true interests and dignity against the pleadings 
of their own high spirit, the sting of unprovoked hos- 
tility, and the languor of drooping patriotism. Ameri- 



46 OliATION. 

can in every fibre of his nature, he felt that if Liberty 
triumphed, it must be by the hands of her own children, 
and that those hands must be held from even defensive 
wrong. It was a perilous course through which he had 
to guide. The single rib of steel which spanned Pada- 
lon's gulf was scarcely narrower, or reared over greater 
dangers, but he sat unmoved : 

*■• Steady and swift the self-moved chariot went, 
Winning the long ascent, 
Then downward rolling, gains the farther shore." 

We must have moulted our memories, as the birds their 
last year's feathers, if we have forgotten the perils of 
the way. But the firmness of Lincoln and the genius 
of Seward bore us through. 

While the country was rejoicing over the captured 
rebel emissaries in the Trent, and Eno-land refusing: to 
await an explanation, brandished her club in our faces. 
and threatened us with war, it was not an easy task to 
say to a high spirited people, " We have erred ; we 
must retrace our steps." Yet, he said it, and in such a 
way that malice itself could not misinterpret the motive. 
A world in arms could not move us from the right. 
Our dignity withdrew us from the wrong. When that 
same England, false to the accredited spirit of her stock, 
was warm to the enemies of liberty, and icy to its friends ; 
when her leading journal poured out daily its taunts 
and glad predictions of defeat, taxing its ingenuity to 
malign our motives and falsify our achievements, — to 
encourage our enemies and intimidate our friends, — to 
destroy our credit, and grow rich by our sufferings ; 
when the pirates that preyed upon our commerce issued 



Oratjox. 47 

from her ports, completely fitted for their work, and 
returned from their dastardly rapine, to be applauded, 
and to refit ; when every colony she owned was practi- 
cally shut to us, and open to our foes; and Canada, 
Australia, the Cape and the Athmtic Islands vied with 
each other for her approval, by insult and outrage of 
every sort, — it would not have been difficult to unite 
the people in a declaration of just and deadly war. But 
it might have been our ruin. When France, emboldened 
by our trials, advanced the banner of her Latin civiliza- 
tion, and defied the sentiment of our race by the con- 
quest of Mexico, there were a provocation and a danger 
of the greatest magnitude ; but our path was carried 
clear of both. Nor were the peoples of the world, at 
any moment, in doubt of what we meant or what we 
were about. Aristocracy and Despotism painted the 
picture as they wished it, but the common people re- 
moved the obscuring pigment, by the alchemy of a 
common interest and a common aspiration, and read 
the outline as it was. They felt for us, for they hoped 
to enjoy with us; and the messages of cheer which they 
sent to us across the water abide in our hearts. Popu- 
lar sympathy Mr. Lincoln recognized with delight. 
Foreign insult and hostility he noted ; but, for the time, 
he passed them by. Foreign intervention he indig- 
nantly repudiated from the first. The value of this 
service, time will reveal. 

A close and thorough scrutiny of Mr. Lincoln's acts 
and words will not fail to show him, to all coming time, 
as one of the great men of the world — one of those be- 
ings upon whom the sacred seals were set, " That give 
the world assurance of a man." Great in his intellectual 
composition for the uses and the audience to which his 



48 Oration. 

mind was called to address itself, he was even greater 
in the moral. The action of his mind was easy, vigor- 
ous and remarkably direct. Always starting from 
principles, a true and even subtle logic bore him to his 
conclusions without divergence. If he disclosed the 
processes, it was in a phraseology altogether distinctive 
of the man, and which brought him close to the hearts 
and intelligence of those whom he addressed, while a 
play of homely humor, and touches of descriptive anec- 
dote and illustration, brightened and deepened the im- 
pression. Strong common sense dominated over all, 
but it mated with the keenest subtlety of thought, and 
only prescribed the dress of a most natural and fitting 
phrase. He was no scholar, in the technical sense, — no 
orator, beyond a limited range. For the flights of im- 
passioned oratory, his emotional nature was too sluggish, 
or too carefully repressed ; but in tenderness and pathos, 
he felt his way to the heart with a success that genius 
might envy. In his letters and speeches we see no 
striving after effect for effect's sake. It was not in his 
nature. No man ever rose to power in our country who 
was so truly a representative American as he. Foreign 
travel, an acquaintance with foreign languages and 
manners, intercourse with the distinguished men of other 
lands, one or the other, had exercised an influence upon 
most of our public men ; but he was absolutely unaf- 
fected by any. Society had not rubbed down the out- 
line of his character to fit its own conventional mould. 
His heart, his hopes, his tastes, his pursuits, his affections, 
and, perhaps, his prejudices, had been those of the mass 
of his fellow countrymen. His reasoning was adapting 
itself to their minds while it was shaping itself in his 
own. His imagery kept company with theirs. His 



Oh ATI ox. 49 

illustrations never outreachecl their memory and fancy. 
His wit and humor had a home tone to their ears. He 
allowed them to see into him at all times, and they 
recognized a man in substance like themselves. He 
had met and conquered difficulties as they had done, 
and they saw, in his grapple with new ones, the sort of 
struggle they would have wished to put forth them- 
selves. He was a true man of the people, in the struc- 
ture both of body and of mind. 

But it was his moral nature that was his crown of 
glory and of strength. Temperament undoubtedly did 
much for him. It did much for his cheerfulness, his 
tenderness of heart, his imruffled and most blessed 
temper ; but it could not have done all. There was a 
deeper spring that fed the benignity which knew no 
bitterness to anybody, even to traitors and foes ; which 
repressed them as divine justice would dictate, in a spirit 
of love to what is right, and of uncompromising oppo- 
sition to the wrong, with a view to repentance and 
return. A mind perfectly self-sustained, because sus- 
tained by a principle of duty referred always to the will 
and word of God, was his foundation stone, and it was 
laid by the One who alone can lay it. That neither 
anger, nor envy, nor pride, nor petulance, nor disap- 
pointment, — that no misapplied virtue,nor any vice, that 
simulated virtue, — ever moved it from its. settled base 
was the labor, and is now the honor of his life. What- 
ever he was, too, he was, in the midst of myriad embar- 
rassments and novelties ; of trying disasters, alternating 
with as trying success ; of incessant labor, watchfulness 
and weariness; of factious opposition, and as fictions 
support; of misrepresentation and misconstruction ; and 



50 Oration. 

yet without yielding, in a single instance, to anger, or 
even to irritation. 

A certain external dignity might have made his office 
seem higher, without being so in the least, but the 
assumption of it, in his ordinary carriage, would have 
marred the pleasant picture he has left. We should 
not have seen him as he truly was, accessible and equa- 
ble to all, because kind, humane and excellent at heart. 
We could not have looked within his breast, as he so 
often let us do, and taken comfort for our own in the 
gloomy days. It is true that the noble sentences of his 
inaugurals, and messages, and proclamations ; the tender 
sublimity of his Gettysburg oration, which will live 
while the language lives ; the inspiring and prophetic 
utterances of his later days, — these would still have 
remained, and we might well thank God for the pre- 
cious gift. But the man of our love and admiration, we 
should have missed. 

He who fails to feel that God's hand has been over us 
in the progress of our struggle, may also fail to see that 
His was the selection of the man who led us. He gave 
us the man for our wants, and left us to discover in him 
the man of our desires. The nation needed him, but it 
did not choose him, at first, from any perception of its 
need. It looked for a ruler, but it got far more. If we 
test his administration by its principles, it was upright; 
if by its results, it was eminently successful ; if by its 
influences, it was elevating. Yet it was an administra- 
tion which found us united upon its merits only at its 
close. Then his true value stood revealed ; and then, 
a grateful people paid its tribute of approbation by 
electing him its ruler lor a second term. 

It was well said of Washington, that " he changed 



On AT fox. 51 

mankind's ideas of political greatness." And it might 
be said, with equal truth, of Abraham Lincoln. He car- 
ried still further the change which that venerated man 
began, and lifted the judgments of mankind to a higher 
level. Yet, what greatness and power does not that 
praise assert. Is it so small a work ? While a Caesar, 
a Bonaparte, a Cromwell, and a Washington alike re- 
ceive our praise, can it be said that we have yet learned 
what real political greatness is? We are, however, 
learning it ; and that we are, is in large measure, the 
work of him who has gone, God has set the seal of 
success to principles and practices which, henceforth, we 
may not dare to underrate. The man of the people has 
taught the people how to estimate themselves and him. 
He has lifted for their admiration, truth and candor, 
simplicity and charity, the graces of soul before the 
accomplishments of mind ; and has drawn them back 
through tli,e luminous pathway of those virtues to the 
eternal principles which glorify them all. He purged 
our vision until the eye, which even brilliant vice could 
once dazzle, can now look into the pure, bright light of 
virtue, and grow stronger. And this he has done, not 
amid the tranquillity of peace, but the tire and blood 
of a fearful civil war. Great armies swept over the 
land. Great navies scourged the sea. The energies of 
a gigantic race strained in the conflict. It gave its 
treasure, its valor, its skill, — and he directed all. It was 
repulsed, and he encouraged and planned anew. It was 
victorious, and he applauded. It conquered, and he 
secured the conquest. It suffered, and he pitied and 
consoled. It wept its dead, and he wept them with it. 
It praised him, and he turned its praises to themselves, — 
to the soldier, the sailor, the toiling mother, the self- 



62 Oration. 

sacrificing wife, the steadfast living, the honorable dead. 
It abiLsed him, and he was silent ; but heart, and hand, 
and head kept on their fearless and protective work. 

And what results for the future was he not preparing? 
He was liberating the intellect as well as the bodies of 
a race. He was making the freedom of the world, — 
of all men in all climes, — henceforth a certainty. He 
was dissolving the bonds between the falsehoods and 
iniquities of the old and new worlds. He was teaching 
a lesson to tyrants and emancipators alike. Command- 
ing armies such as the world never saw before, he was 
binding all their glories to the cause of civil liberty. 
Controlling treasure almost boundless, he was uncor 
rupted and uncorrupting. 

While we reflect upon this, and while our grief tnkes 
fresh bitterness from the thought of what he might have 
continued to be to us, let us not overlook the glory with 
Avhich a gracious God vouchsafed to crown his many 
excellencies during his life, — the glory that our eyes 
have already seen. His administration " was sown in 
weakness, but it was raised in power." It began in 
whispering fear ; it ended in exulting pteans. Yet its 
weakness was even, at first, more apparent than real. 
Behind him was the exhaustless strength of the North 
and West. At his side, and waiting for his word, were 
those brave and able men, like him self-dedicated to 
their country, — that illustrious band, — the wreaths for 
whose living brows, and the chaplets for whose dead, 
the Nation alone must weave. Victors and martyrs for 
the Union, no State can henceforth single out her own, 
but each shall find its representative in all. Those 
majestic words of the latest Hebrew prophet seem to 
come to me with a meanini!: for these times : " Prove 



Oration. 53 

me now, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you 
the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing 
that there shall not be room enough to receive it." 
They proved him with the costliest offering, — the offer- 
ing of self, — and the blessing came. Port Royal, and 
Hatteras, and Newbern, and Roanoke, and New Orleans, 
Columbus and Island No. 10, and Vicksburg, and Knox- 
ville, and Chattanooga, and Atlanta, and Savannah, and 
Charleston, and Richmond. These are the gems which 
heaven-sent Victory dropped from her tiara as she 
moved across the continent. Clinging forever to our 
now consecrated flag, they shall shine along its stripes, 
and give new brightness to its undiminished stars. He 
saw them set in its glorious field and gleaming in its 
folds. Victory paused before his eye, and waved her 
broad wings over all the land, in tremulous benediction. 
The flag of Sumter was restored while he lived. The 
foundation army of the rebellion surrendered to the 
army of which he was Commander-in-chief His own 
foot had trod the capital of treason, and his own ear 
had heard the simple blessings of the race which God, 
through him, had freed. On land and on sea the Union 
was triumphant, and to his vision peace and prosperity 
were already near. It was a closer view than that from 
Pisgah's top, and a grander. God, in mercy, permitted 
it to the eye which w\as so soon to close in death, and 
his own tongue has confessed its blessedness and peace. 

" Vero felix non mtce taniiim clariiate sed etiam ojopor- 
iuniiate mortis." 

But the end was at hand. At the very moment 
when all is joy and exultation, — when the hearts of all 
beat strong, and the nation stretches out its hand to the 
repentant and returning, — the demon of Slavery strikes 



54 Oration. ' 

its expiring blow. With hell in his heart and fustian 
on his lips, the ruffian representative of this hideous 
iniquity springs upon the scene, and fires the fatal shot 
which opens for Abraham Lincoln the abodes of endur- 
ing blessedness ; for himself, the caverns of despair. 

How terrible the blow! How awful the shock! 
Faith alone remains unparalysed ; but is not faith our 
vital principle ? Is not faith his best memorial ? 

My fellow-citizens, is it the death of a man that we 
lament, or the sin of a man that we condemn ? It 
seems to me that we shall perceive but little of the 
awful truth, if we think so. Southern secession, South- 
ern barbarism, but, first of all. Southern slavery, — and 
Northern sympathy with all or any of them, — these are 
the felons for our judgment ; the spirit of liberty and 
law, the destiny of man, and the will of God, — these 
are what were assailed. These clothed themselves in 
the forms of the noble victim, and of his ignoble assas- 
sin. High bred men, and delicate women, who have 
not blushed to praise and cherish this malignant insti- 
tution, — who have rated its merchandise as of more 
worth than family purity, and national life, and human 
progress, — may startle at the thought, that in their 
souls could lurk one seed of that which flowered in 
assassination. But let them look more closely. Even 
in that cultured soil may have been the rootlets of this 
poison-plant. The crime of murder lay folded in the 
crime of slavery, and he who cherished the one has, 
unknowingly it may be, reared the other. The picture 
is even more appalling so, but we must not shut our 
eyes. We owe it to the destinies of our race ; we owe 
it to the character and memory of the dead ; we owe it 
to our own moral sense, if we would not see it palsied 



• Oration. 55 

forever ; we owe it to the majesty of the law for which 
so many of our brethren have fought, and starved, and 
died, — to look through the agents in this crime, to its 
guiltier principal ; and to let righteousness be the 
plummet of our judgment. 

Let us not be too solicitous about the law, and its 
retributions. Let us not strive to influence the utter- 
ances of that majestic spirit, " whose seat," we say, •' is 
the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world." 
Her judgments and her sentences will be carried out 
only so far as the public sentiment permit. Let us 
rather clarify the portion which we ourselves contribute 
to that sentiment. Let us see to it, that in our minds, 
treason is not suffered to be the synonym for heroism 
in defence ; nor rebellion, for difference in political 
opinion ; nor slavery for anything but sin. Let us see 
that justice is meted, in our own estimates and opinions, 
to the high as well as to the low, — the justice of disap- 
proval, of degradation, of infamy, if such be called for ; 
and let it settle on the leaders and the gentlemen of 
crime, and on them most heavily ; or else, let us hide our 
faces before the prisoned thief, and sentenced murderer. 
Let us set up the true standard within our souls, and 
then " with malice towards none, with charity for all, tvith 
firmness in the right as God gives lis to see the right, let us 
strive on to finish the work we are in.'' 

" He mourns the Dead who lives as they desire," is 
truth, in poetry. 

This mighty nation has mourned the illustrious dead 
with the full outpourings of spontaneous sorrow. The 
tones of its lamentation have reached across the earth, 
and have waked responsive echoes from its farthest bor- 
ders. Never, since Creation's dawn, did such universal 



56 Oration. 

grief attend the death of one man. None could indiffer- 
ently observe where all were mourners. We still regard 
the sublime scene with awe. But our mourning cannot 
end here. In the imperfect sketch which I have pre- 
sented of this great and good man, I have failed entirely, 
if I have left it necessary still to point out the virtues 
which invite the imitation of our people. We find them 
in his life. Let us then live as he lived — as he would 
have had us live. With God's will for our guide, and 
our country's welfare our aim, let the virtues of our be- 
loved President be the pilots and attendants of our 
course. Let our patriotism be not so much that which 
asserts, as that which demonstrates itself Let our 
courage be not that which defies, but that which sus- 
tains and disarms opposition. Let our constancy be 
not the parasite of prosperity, but the living outgrowth 
of deep rooted faith. Let our firmness be not that of 
the rock which repels, but rather, that of the sturdy 
pine, which bends responsive to the varying breezes 
which move but cannot overturn it. Let us believe less 
in what men style the destiny of nations, of races, of 
men ; and more in the destiny of principles and truths. 
Let us move in that path which the beams of conscience 
and reason may combine to illumine, and so move, as 
men who acknowledge that the greatness of their nation 
and its liberties are a sacred trust committed to them for 
the welfare of mankind. Let the American nation lay 
deep the solid corner stone of right, and upon that foun- 
dation let it rear to the memory of Abraham Lincoln the 
noblest monument it can — the monument of an imita- 
ted example. 

Ilium., " admiraiione jyotiiis quam temporalihus laudi- 
bus, ei si natura suppeditet, etiayn annulatioue decoi-ermis.'" 



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